Kismet, ID# 331471

Kismet, one year old, should have had her life ahead of her, and her finder thought she did when he took her to MCAS, mistakenly believing that MCAS is a shelter, not a disposal and culling site for unwanted animals. She was killed for shyness at the instruction of the MCAS managers’ Rounds Review whose professional failures and incompetence are routinely taken out on vulnerable dogs. Never once, given their inadequate qualifications and complete lack of knowledge about animal behavior science and training, do they think about contacting community experts who would help.

On November 27, 2024, a stray was turned into MCAS after being found on Halsey Street in Fairview by a Good Samaritan who had named her Kismet (based off “Kiss”).

He had kept her for over 24 hours, but less than 7 days and checked boxes that she had been an indoor only dog, was easy going, playful and shy greeting strangers; playful, easy going and shy when left alone or crated; playful and shy over house and litter box training. With regard to other animals she was listed as afraid of meeting new dogs, playful with known dogs, easy going with new cats; shy with known cats. Kismet was also described as playful, easy going and very loving towards children under 10 years old.

Why was she killed on December 6, 2024, 9 days later, marked “Unhealthy and Untreatable” when strangers found her easy, safe and loving?

Kismet encountered a hostile, impatient, and toxic agency that did not have time for her, so they killed her and misrepresented the disposition reason.

December 5, 2024,

“Rounds discussed and will move to humane euthanasia due to behavior in shelter and inability to handle.”

The behavior in question at MCAS is theirs.

First, Kismet’s conduct in the world outside was friendly and joyful. That was her baseline. At an agency operated by competent managers with integrity, the goal would be to directly address what was making Kismet avoidant and fearful at MCAS. The only tool at MCAS is copious amounts of psychotropic medication prescribed by veterinary assistants and technicians checked off by agency veterinarians.

On November 29, 2 days after admission, a veterinary assistant prescribed 150 mg of trazodone twice daily; on December 1, 300 mg of gabapentin was added twice daily; and on December 2, the trazodone dosage was increased to 200 mg twice daily. Nothing else was included to address the terror that Kismet was feeling. Furthermore on December 2, animal care notes recorded Kismet had not been eating the prescribed medication.

No or irregular training causes skill disparities in staff

The shelter’s lack of formal and consistent dog handling training for staff has been an official problem ever since it was reported in the agency’s 2016 audit, in the followup 2018 audit, and in its recent 2024 audit.

In the 2016 audit, less than half of staff had received any training at all on how to comprehend signals to animal behaviors let alone how to humanely handle them at all.

In the followup audit in 2018, the shelter did not meaningfully address this failure. Sure, they did some training for existing staff in 2016 following the audit, but they have not repeated this training for new staff since. They had not yet begun to make a plan to develop a training program.

In the recent 2024 audit, management still doesn’t have a training program. They claimed that it had been “delayed” due to a wider training initiative within the Department of Community Services. The report also mentions that there are “plans” for training in place, but several staff had indicated that there was still no formal dog behavior training. Worse, the only training they received was through watching videos.

A “delay” that has lasted 6 years is not a delay. For 8 years, there has been no formal training, aside from bursts so occasional they come off as a reaction to their lack of formal training being called out. Trainers and diplomates from the community have repeatedly reached out to help the shelter provide regular and meaningful training to staff. Every time, they are met with silence, outright rejection, or nominal acceptance by way of an inconsistent burst of training for existing staff that is not repeated or incorporated into a formal training program. No reasonable person can assess this to be anything short of intentional institutional indifference.

These inconsistencies are why the “behavior notes” in animal records can paint a very different picture regarding an animal’s relative ‘treatability.’ Some staffers coincidentally have more experience in handling stressed out animals than others, as is seen in Kismet’s behavior notes between two different staffers on two different days. On December 2, one staffer’s report indicated that they approached Kismet with a relatively relaxed and disarming demeanor. Another staffer, a day later, directly stared down and was confrontational with Kismet, which earned them her growling and lunging at them.

On December 2, the data collection notes read:

“Kismet has not lunged and snarled at me since taking her meds (was able to get her to take meds late this morning using liver. Mostly trembling on bed, barking when you approach. Will still retreat at time [sic]. If the kennels are quiet she will slowly approach me and take treats, keeps her distance when the barking is loud. Ears down, trembling. I continued to treat her throughout the day. She was less inclined to approach me later in the day, she kept her distance but did growl, just a few hollow barks.

At one point during the afternoon I had the door cracked open and she came over and ate treats near the door. I was not facing the right way to attempt to slip leash her, but she stayed near the door and sniffed the opening. When I moved to attempt to let her smell the leash or leash her she retreated outside, trembling and gave a couple of barks.

Note: There have been improvements to behavior, but delay due to her not eating meds and high FAS [Fear, anxiety and stress].”

On December 3, 2024, another staffer’s data collection notes:

“Attempted to interact with dog a few times throughout the day. She would retreat with ears back, head low, tail tucked, low growling. If I looked towards her, and remained close to kennel she would bark sharply, sometimes accompanied by a lift lip, or small single step lunge forward. Once I looked away she would continue to grumble and retreat inside, laying down on bed. She trembled hard and throughout all interactions, and most of the time I interacted she would retreat inside and avoid.”

A major stressor appears to have been the very loud noise in the kennels dogs are forced to endure. A stressor that the Association of Shelter Veterinarians has already assessed as being harmful to shelter animals in their report, Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters (Section 13, Noise Exposure). Standards that Shelter Director Erin Grahek claims she follows. A claim made without any animal shelter experience, but with the promise that she’ll make up for it by following the leadership of shelter managers. Whether those same managers are central to the long-standing institutional failures at the shelter, aside.

There was no plan to mitigate the noise or even ask the finder to help move her to a quieter location.

Staff are not trained in ways to humanely manage distressed dogs. The management leaves them with a kit consisting of: Pet Corrector, Shaker cans, advice on how to shout commands loudly, and when all else fails, how to use the most force they can in an attempt to trap and subdue animals. A kit that is in complete opposition to what they were supposed to work on in that first audit from 2016: how to humanely handle animals with the least amount of force necessary.

Plans for handling animals are not created beyond ‘observe several times then kill as a solution.’ This is the very definition of lethal incompetence. Nothing is done to make the environment more hospitable. Managers ignore the kennels as they sit enclosed in their offices.

This is not a shelter. Dogs do not deserve to die this way. Workers do not deserve to be traumatized because their efforts to save lives end in needless killing where all that matters is the management’s schedule: ‘The trains have to run on time.’

Gail O’Connell-Babcock

---

Kismet’s records, redacted

Multnomah County Animal Services Audit, 2016

Multnomah County Animal Services Audit, 2018

Multnomah County Animal Services Audit, 2024

Association of Shelter Veterinarians, Guidelines for Standards of Care in Animal Shelters, 2022 Edition, full copy